God Incognito

Phil 2:5-11 TNIV: In
your relationships with one another, have the same attitude of
mind Christ Jesus had:

Who, being in very nature
God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to
his own advantage;

rather, he made himself
nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in
human likeness.

And being found in
appearance as a human being, he humbled himself by becoming
obedient to death—even death on a cross!

Therefore God exalted him
to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every
name,

that at the name of Jesus
every knee should bow,

in heaven and on earth and
under the earth,

and every tongue
acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the
Father.

In
the 1950-s, Sao Kya Seng, the prince of 34 independent Shan states
in northeastern Burma, also known as Hsipaw, came to Denver,
Colorado, to study agriculture. Since he wanted to experience what
it was like to be a student in the US, he kept his identity
secret. Not even his professors knew who he really was. One of his
fellow students was Inge Sargent from Austria. Both of them being
exchange students, Inge and the Burmese prince quickly found that
they had a lot in common and started to spend more and more time
together. Their friendship grew into love but the Burmese prince
decided that he would not let on his true identity even though
they were seriously dating. He did not want Inge’s decision
to date him to be colored by the fact that she could marry into
royalty. So when he finally proposed, with an engagement ring of
ruby and diamond, Inge still did not know who he really was. Inge
said yes and they got married, as any other couple, in the US. For
their honeymoon, Sao Kya Seng was taking Inge to his home country,
so that she could meet his family and see where he was from. When
their ship reached the shores of Burma, hundreds of people were
waiting at the harbor. Many of them had gone out in small boat,
holding up welcoming signs. A band was playing and some people
were tossing flowers at the ship. Surprised at all this excitement
Inge turns to her husband, and asks whose arrival they are
celebrating. “Inge,” he says, I am the prince of
Hsipaw. These people are celebrating our arrival. You are now the
princess.” (From Twilight over Burma: My Life As a Shan
Princess, by Inge Sargent.)

The
story of Jesus is the story of God coming to this world in a way
you never would have expected. It is the story of God incognito.
Jesus, who was himself God, came to the world and concealed his
divine majesty by becoming a human being like you and me.

“Being
in very nature God, he did not consider equality with God
something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself
nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in
human likeness.”

Why
did he do this? This is the way he shows his love for us.

Do
you know what impresses me about some of my good friends? That
they will let me be myself when I am around them. I don’t
have to pretend. I can just relax. I don’t have to pretend
that I have everything together. I don’t have to pretend
that I am holier than I am. I can just be who I am with all my
imperfections. Friends that let me be like that, are the friends
that don’t play games with me. They don’t have a
polished facade that they keep showing me without letting me see
their weaknesses. They show me the trust that they let me look
into their own life and they give me the freedom that I can be
comfortable letting them share of myself.

Do
you think of God in that way?

Have
you played the game when you hear a word and you are supposed to
say the first word that comes to your mind? If I say “God,”
what words do you think of? Heaven? Glory? Holy? Exalted? Throne?

How
about slave? obedient? death? lowly? pathetic? shame?

A
Norwegian preacher once said that Jesus stepped down so low, so
that he would always be below us, so that he could always be there
and catch us when we fall.

Have
you noticed how many people that want to be your friend when it
comes to offering good advice and telling you how to do things?
They want to be the older brother friend or the older sister
friend. They want to be the ones that always know. Not that they
mind sharing their superior knowledge with you. That’s how
they show that they are your friend. I think of these people as
people that like to be your friend, the friend that is placed a
little bit higher than you. I don’t like to have too many of
these friends. I prefer the people where I can be the one standing
a little bit higher, the friendship where I can be the one that
knows best. But how difficult it is to find the friend that is
happy to stand below you.

How
hard it is to be that friend, who is happy to stand below.

Can
you imagine that God came to be that friend. When he came to the
world he abandoned all his power, status, and influence, and
became a carpenter without a permanent address. Of course, for the
incarnation to happen, he had to let go of some of his divine
majesty, so that he could fit in a human body. But there were so
many other ways he could have chosen to become a human being. He
could have come in a way more appropriate for someone of such
tremendous importance. He could have come as a king, or at least
as a wealthy, highly respected member of the community

“Rather,
he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a
human being, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death—even
death on a cross!”

Imagine
that there was one person, one man, that was ultimately
responsible for all the suffering in the world, a man that had so
much power and influence that he alone controlled world events and
caused millions of people to die of starvation, caused nations to
go into war and people to suffer. Imagine that his workings were
finally disclosed to the world and an international tribunal was
set up to mete out the appropriate punishment for this person.
Execution would be too mild a reaction, that would be over in a
moment. Something would have to be devised so that this person
could experience the suffering he had inflicted on so many people.
Imagine that a drug had been invented that could reverse the
effects of aging. This drug could be administered to this person,
so that he would have to live his whole life over again. This time
a life of suffering. What should we let his life be like?

The
misery of course had to start from the minute he was born. He
would have to experience the agony of being hated just because he
was born. Let him live a life as a victim of racism, constantly to
be judged by the color of his skin, before he had the chance to do
anything, people would have made up his mind about him. Let him be
born a Jew, the most hated people of all.

That
would of course not be enough. We would have to make sure, not
only that those of another race hated, he would have to be
despised by his own kin as well. There would have to be something
that made him different from the outset. Let him be born out of
wedlock among conservative village people.

This
is only the beginning. He would have to suffer an unstable
childhood. He would have to have traumatic experiences starting in
his very early years. Let him be born in a war torn country. Let
there be an attempt on his life while he is still an little child
and let him grow up in a foreign country as a refugee.

Needless
to say, he would have to be poor. He would have to be born to a
family who could not afford to pay for decent health care, so that
he would be born under less than sanitary circumstances.

He
would have to suffer psychological hardship when he grew up. He
should what it was like to be rejected by other people, rejected
so that it really stings. Let him experience making friends,
friends who would turn around and hand him over to be killed just
for a small amount of money. Let him experience his best friend
swearing that he never knew him.

He
would of course have to suffer the utmost pain any human being has
ever seen. Let him be given into the hands of sadistic torturers,
who would make him their play thing. Let him then finally die, a
slow, shameful, and utterly painful death.

I
have just described to you the life God himself chose to live,
when he came to earth as a human being. “And being found in
appearance as a human being, he humbled himself by becoming
obedient to death—even death on a cross!” My story is
inaccurate only in the sense that no one made Jesus live this life
and die this death. He freely chose to let this be the life and
the death that he entered into.

“For
you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was
rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you through his
poverty might become rich” (2 Cor 8:9).

Christ’s
way was a way downwards, so that he could bring us upwards. He
died so that we might live. He suffered for sins, so that we might
be justified.

First
of all, Christ did all these things in our place. But Christ’s
downwards life is also an example for us to follow. The whole
passage that we have read this morning is introduced by a direct
admonishment to us: “In your relationships with one another,
have the same attitude of mind Christ Jesus had:”

Jesus’
downwards movement is supposed to be the blueprint for our own
life. We are called to have the same mind-set as Christ Jesus had,
a mind-set that makes us happy to suffer loss of our own
privileges, our own status, our own wealth, so that we can move
downwards and lift others up. If you want to live your life as a
follower of Jesus, this is what you are aiming for.

To
follow Jesus will not give you wealth, fame, or popularity in this
world. Nor will it give you a prize for your impressive
spirituality. You see, the way of Christ is not a way upwards. It
is a way downwards. Just as it was a way downwards for Jesus, from
heaven to earth and from Galilee to the cross outside Jerusalem.
So also is the way of Christ for us a way downwards.

This
should tell us something about how we relate to other people. This
is in fact the point Paul is making at this juncture in his
epistle to the Philippians: “Do nothing out of selfish
ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above
yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to
the interests of the others.” (Phil 2:3-4). In our
interaction with other people, we should not use them to lift
ourselves up. We should not pick friends based on how we can
become more popular ourselves, or based on how we can look good
ourselves. Rather, we should be happy to brought down so that we
might bring others up. We should pick friends so that we can do
good for them.

“Live
in harmony with one another. Do not be proud, but be willing to
associate with people of low position. Do not think you are
superior” (Rom 12:16).

This
is why Paul always emphasized that the life of an apostle was a
life of giving up his rights. As an apostle he had the right to
receive financial support from the Corinthians when he preached to
them. But he abandoned this right. For he would rather share the
gospel free of charge and be among the Corinthians as a loving
father rather than a fee charging schoolmaster. He admonished the
Corinthians to abandon their freedom to eat and drink whatever
they wanted, when it caused their brothers to stumble. It is more
important to act out of love to your fellow Christians than to
make use the privileges that are rightfully yours.

Many
times I have been frustrated: why are there so many annoying
people in the church? Bear in mind that I am not talking about any
of you. I started coming here relatively recently. I don’t
know who the annoying people are yet. But in the different
churches I have been going to over the years, I always find that I
wish there were not so many irritating people.

But
I also have to admit that I believe that’s exactly the way
the Jesus wants it to be. Because he loves annoying people so much
that he came down to earth to die for all the annoying people that
have ever lived. Compared to the holiness of Christ, all of us are
really annoying people. But the amazing thing is that he likes
annoying people so much that when he chose his twelve closest
friends, he chose the money worshiping Judas Iscariot, who was
going to be judgmental and grumble about the way other people
spent their own money. Not only that, but in the end he was going
to betray his master for a handful of change. There was the cocky
Peter, who always had to speak up before he involved his brain.
There were the arrogant brothers, John and James, who thought they
deserved the place of honor in the kingdom of heaven. There was
the blind Bartimaeus, a very annoying and loud man, impossible to
shut up when he started his shouting. All of them were also quite
dense, usually incapable of grasping anything that was told them
by the use of metaphor. Certainly not any company for a genius,
who, at the age of 12, had all the scholars in the nation’s
capital spellbound by his insights.

Jesus
did not chose the friends that would jump start his social life
and help him be elected home coming king. He enjoyed the company
of the outcasts.

That
is why I think one of the best measures of the Christ-likeness of
a church, is how many annoying people that feel at home there.

The
way of Christ is a downwards movement. How much that tells us
about spirituality. Very often, what we think of as spirituality
is exactly the opposite. It is an upwards movement. It is our
attempt to lift ourselves up. It is our attempt to grow. Our
attempt to become a good person. And it is all about ourselves.
All about how I can be spiritual. How I can be a good person.

Christ
shows us a different way. A way of spirituality that has nothing
to do with lifting ourselves up and trying to climb on a spiritual
ladder. Because we do not have to do that. There is nowhere for us
to climb for Christ has come down to us. If you will understand
what I mean: There is no need for us to become a better person,
for in Christ we already are everything that we can be. We are
perfect in the eyes of God. That was what Christ did for us when
he came down. He became poor so that we might become rich. He died
for our sins so that we might be righteous and holy and perfect
before God.

Christ
therefore calls us to join with him. In a downwards journey.
Seeking not ourselves and our betterment. But seeking other
people. Seeking other people’s betterment. Jesus teaches us
to seek other people, not as a means to make ourselves more
popular or even to make ourselves better people. But to seek other
people for their own sake. We don’t need good works for our
own sake. But other people need them.

Jesus
says: “The greatest among you will be your servant”
(Matt 23:11). In other words, the way to greatness is a way
downwards.

The
way downwards, however, does not end at the bottom. That is
paradoxical message of the gospel. Luke 14:11 “For all those
who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble
themselves will be exalted.” The way upwards ends at the
bottom, but the way downwards ends at the top.

Jesus’
way did not end at the cross, it continued with his crucifixion
and glorification. “Therefore God exalted him to the highest
place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the
name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and
under the earth, and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is
Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”

If
we live a life with Christ, we can rejoice when we are brought
low, because Christ’s downwards journey ends in heaven.

“Now
if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and
co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in
order that we may also share in his glory” (Rom 8:17).

The
Bible often likens our relationship with God to that of a bride’s
relationship to her groom. As the church of Christ, we are
Christ’s bride. The second coming of Christ is often
described as the great wedding banquet, when Christ, the groom,
will come to get us, the believer, his bride, and lead us into his
glorious kingdom. That is when we will hear the words: Welcome
home. You are now the princess!